Dolls and Ghosts
by Inkfire
Summary: Things are born, and things die, hearts withered with loss and age-old traditions. With one letter, one picture and one name: Nymphadora. A Black family fic, and a gift to Hermione's Harmony.


**This is dedicated to the lovely Hermione's Harmony, for being a great reviewer and a sweetheart =) happy early birthday!**

**"I've always wondered how the Black's, particularily Bellatrix, discovered that Andromeda had had a child and what they felt toward it."**

**Well, here's my take on it. Sorry this is a bit on the short side, and I hope you like it, dear =)**

**(Narcissa is not included in this, as her reaction to this particular event is planned in my Narcissa-centric multi-chapter, Sentimental Hearts.)**

* * *

_Dear Mother, _

_I never wanted to write to you again. I never wanted to call you any name that would remind you that we are family still, despite distance and tapestries – it always seemed to me that I have made my choice, and so has the family. Any further attempts at communication would thus, on my part, be but deluded dreams, more torturous than they are worth. There is no good in clinging to the past, I've learned. _

_It is not the past that drives me to write this epistle, however. It is the future, and a feeling of necessity too imperious for arguments. My blood speaks, if I may use such a crude image, at the risk of you tossing the parchment away in disgust. _

_Black blood speaks, and Black blood is born again. I have a child, Mother. I have a child, beautiful, healthy and magical – more magical than any, as her abilities were first shown but one hour after her birth. My daughter is a Metamorphomagus. I am told to watch her face carefully, as she will change it often and at the slightest trigger, but the command is of no use – I have had eyes only for her ever since I saw her for the first time. Nymphadora's eyes tend to immediately take the colour of those of whoever might find themselves the object of her focus, but their natural shade reminds me of Father's and of Bella's. Her face is pale and lovely, with the same fine features we all inherited from you, and as a true Black, she knows how to lure and to seduce: everybody she's met has done nothing but fawn over her. She demands attention, and holds it effortlessly. She is... she is a wonder already, one of a kind. _

_I find myself awed by the amount of love such a small and seemingly insignificant creature never fails to arouse from the very depths of my being. I never thought I would have children this early; I dreaded the idea of being nothing but a mother, losing my individuality – yet when I learned that I was expecting Nymphadora, I did not hesitate. Then again, I am a free woman now, and have experienced things of this world that you couldn't properly fathom. At my Healer training, I have seen enough blood spread to tell that there is little depth to the talks of purity, that all magical blood has the same colour and scent, that all magical beings are equals in resilience, energy, life – some stronger than I could ever dream of being. Having witnessed what I have, giving life is to me a blessing and a miracle, and yet too natural and right to even be questioned._

_My daughter has a name worthy of my breeding and ancestry, but I relish, most of all, the fact that her life will be hers, to design as she likes, in complete freedom. This is what I always wanted, and what I now have. She is your grandchild, and I hope that you will think of her as such, whenever she does cross your mind. I am not so deluded as to entertain the thought that you might like to visit us, but know, regardless, that should such an unlikely scheme tempt you, you will always be welcome to do so. I would be most delighted to introduce you to my precious girl. _

_With my love, always, _

_Your daughter despite name and deeds, _

_Andromeda Tonks._

* * *

The first owl tapped against the window of a dainty little boudoir, on the third floor of a grand manor. The lady who came to let it in was tall, slim and elegant; she raised a pale eyebrow at the shabby-looking bird, and retrieved the letter, which she brought back to the armchair she'd been reclining in, with a magazine and a cup of tea. Upon unrolling the parchment, the sight of the handwriting made her gasp and lose her composure for a minute. Her mouth trembled as she read, her hand shaking on her lap, twisting the fabric of her robes.

Druella Black found herself overtaken by a blind, shuddering confusion. She wished she had never allowed this letter to be delivered to her, and she appreciated the knowledge it gifted her with fiercely, aware that this would be the end and she would hear no further about her grandchild. As she shifted, something that had been concealed in the folds of the parchment fell into her lap: it was a tiny photograph, and she seized it with her heart in her mouth, screaming inside. Her daughter had not been deluded by her motherly affection: the girl was lovely indeed, as lively and wide-eyed as Bellatrix had been, as fair and angel-like as Narcissa. Her tiny tuft of hair was blond on the picture, and Druella blinked hard – she also had the eyes Andromeda had described, her grandfather's – the child was such a Black that she couldn't take it another second.

Flipping the photograph upside down, she tossed it with the letter on a nearby coffee table and stood, pacing the room quickly. She'd been gazing at a picture of a little halfblood and deeming it worthy of the Noble House of Black – she was losing her mind. Druella choked quietly by the window, the sun on her face more alive than she felt. She had to take her mind off the infamy, and she had to do it now, before she could entertain one too many guilty thoughts. Yet Bellatrix was married, Narcissa was at school, and her husband was working. As always, and the Manor lay dead in its impassive beauty, empty as she was beyond the arrogantly attractive face, nothing but name and looks – devoid of even its oh-so-precious blood. Druella squeezed her eyes shut and considered going to the family elders for guidance, yet the idea was but one second of support before the obvious senselessness of it struck her: she needed no advice, for she knew exactly what she had to do, with painful precision. She needed to see someone dear to her heart, or to be consoled – certainly not reprimanded for her weakness. Her sister-in-law would gloat over her grief, and the tapestry would remind her that Andromeda Black existed no more, and that Nymphadora Tonks should never have seen the light at all.

She knew that well, already.

Druella allowed her eyes to drift closed for a moment, and took a deep breath. Then with light, measured steps, she walked over to the coffee table and picked up her middle daughter's missive. Going over to her gracefully slender, mahogany writing table, she opened a drawer with the key she wore in the locket clasped around her neck. Inside there was a box. She opened it warily; it was full of letters and pictures, already. Carefully folding this one epistle, she placed it at the top, then hovered, the photograph shaking in her hand. The baby gazed up at her seriously, intensely. Shutting the box, she whirled around and tossed the picture into the flames of the hearth. Two seconds, and it was over, before she had the time to change her mind. The lovely face crumpled to ashes and her memories lay sealed in a tiny box that was the heartfelt and the forbidden.

Leaning against the desk in her ornate and empty quarters, she allowed herself to weep, muffling her cries with a dainty palm.

Then she gasped a few times, bit her thin, lipstick-coated mouth hard, and went quickly to the mirror that was hanging above the fireplace.

Her make-up was damaged, her face stricken. Carefully, Druella Black wiped her cheeks until they were clean and cold again, flawlessly white.

* * *

The second owl arrived at the Ministry of Magic, and the missive it carried was sent over to the International Magical Office of Law. There, a bashful secretary warily knocked at the door of Cygnus Black's office, and at his quick response, walked inside to set the letter on the side of his desk, beside the professional mail. He dismissed her without a second glance.

The letter remained sealed and disregarded for the whole morning as Cygnus read reports, sent notes, worked on amendments, Floo'd a few specialized lawyers and supervised the details to a nearing diplomatic trip. It was only as he came back from lunch with a high-placed colleague of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement that he eventually considered taking a short break. Reclining in his chair, he rubbed his eyes with a sigh and thought that he would come home late, again. He couldn't say he minded. Then he remembered the personal letter that had arrived for him in the morning.

He picked it up with a sigh and opened it quickly. The first thing he saw was the picture of a baby, and it made him pause, stunned. Who on earth would have bothered sending him the picture of an infant? Nobody he knew was expecting. He looked closer. The child had blond hair and her eyes were very dark, almost black; they reminded him of his eldest daughter's. She was a lovely thing, with something quite familiar about her, that he couldn't place. Irked to be sent pictures of random babies when he was so busy at work, he tossed the photograph away and glanced at the letter, deciding to only scan through it. The penmanship, strikingly familiar, shattered his resolve.

Cygnus had to pause after the first few paragraphs of the letter, and blindly hunted for the picture again. He stared at it so intensely that he might have burned a hole right through it; the infant stared back, her little head cocked to the side, her hair slowly darkening as she took him in. She seemed satisfied to be watched, and reminded him of Narcissa, somehow.

It was quickly becoming difficult to breathe. He put the photograph aside once more, and finished his reading. Then he was left to stare blankly into space. The ever so familiar feeling of loss was stirring in his chest, constricting his lungs and heart, making everything painful. He had been the one to go and ask her to come back. He had mentioned that the family was ready to forgive, to keep the secret of her flight, to welcome her back as a child of theirs. She wasn't tainted yet. She had refused, had told him that she didn't want to come back; that she yearned for freedom. He had let her hug him, even after those words of betrayal, one last time. Then he had left, accepting her choice. He hadn't screamed, hadn't cursed the Mudblood scum. Now she was sending him pictures of her impure offspring, an insultingly pretty, unreliable thing, with shifting looks and yet _his eyes_. And Cygnus loathed her and loved her and thought that she was painfully like him, only, perhaps, braver.

He went to the window and found the fake light to be no relief. But there was no relief to be found anyway. There would be no relief for the left behind. He had been the runaway once, the one the family whispered restlessly about, the rebel, the lovestruck fool. His pureblooded lover had drunk a vial of poison and it had made spouse, children and name look like dust in the wind to the tremendous intensity of his grief. He, the quiet, clever, secretive one of his generation, had fled and made a spectacle of himself, before being brought back home like the prodigal child, to the elders' disapproval, his sister's disdain, his wife's blank eyes and his daughters' embraces. To the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Nothing was worth leaving this behind and nothing could erase such a breeding, ancestry and blood so imperious. Yet Andromeda was not him and she was not coming back. She was the bravery he could never have found and the inability to lead a life of duty and dissatisfaction, the rash decision and the determined resilience – Andromeda was freedom. While he had fled due to death, she hadn't even run for love, but for sheer _life_. Her life, and now her child's. A child she'd never leave – a child he'd never see. "Nymphadora," he dared to whisper, and found that the name had no place on his tongue.

Time was passing by, he thought as he walked back to the desk. His children's hunger was upsetting the shape of this world he had built without really wanting it. Beyond the alarm, he welcomed the grief like an old friend. Cygnus Black did not cry, he only closed his eyes and allowed the loss to take its toll.

Life was moving on, too slowly or too fast, and nobody would spare a glance for the new lines on his face.

All the better, surely.

* * *

"A letter came for you today," Rodolphus told her as she came home, a bit bloodied and exhausted.

At first Bellatrix very much felt like tossing something at his head, but he knew to duck out of her way, and she moved wearily to their living room, vaguely annoyed at whoever was deeming it a worthwhile activity to write to her. She couldn't think of one person she might enjoy getting a letter from – among the people who were likely to try in the first place... Family, mostly – she groaned inwardly. Brilliant.

The letter was waiting on the table and she stretched before seizing it carelessly and flipping it open with a flick of her wrist. Something fell from the folds of it at her feet but she gave it no heed, frozen in front of the handwriting she had immediately recognized. Her heart started beating dangerously faster as she stood there, not knowing whether to throw the missive from her like a poisonous thing or to devour it greedily – _as if there were still hope._ As if. Bellatrix gritted her teeth, and started reading.

Halfway through the blood left her face and she staggered, ice-cold disbelief flooding her lungs. She was too numb to feel rage, and regretted it bitterly – pure, unadulterated anger, the sting of betrayal were things she could deal with, not this... paralyzing feeling. Not a stabbing, not a burning, not a slap, it was nothing but words, words that told her what she already knew: she'd never see her sister again. The knowledge seeped into her bones and the parchment shook in her hand as passionate wrath gave way to the simple, everlasting truth. It had been three years but the name had never ceased to burn, to send her reeling with revolt. Now she wanted to laugh, laugh until her voice broke and her throat went dry, because this was blunt and true and there was nothing she could do about it. There was nothing to be done anymore and she'd been running from the fact long enough. It was only fair that it'd come back to hit her in the face.

Bellatrix dismissed the letter, letting it fall to the ground. She couldn't care anymore about her sister's ramblings, and was quite amazed that the latter still dared to throw in recommendations to her, at the very end – a tag-along thought, shamelessly assuming that she was still allowed to care. She was not – she had her own scum family to care about now, and it wasn't as though Bella would listen anyway. _Take care of yourself, don't do anything rash. I love you_. Bellatrix was very aware of the Muggle blood on her dress as she bent down to retrieve the photograph that had slipped from her notice earlier. She could have painted her sister's face with tainted blood, if she loved filth so much. _Don't do anything rash_. Like break a glass or throw a fit – or run a knife through someone? Yes – Andromeda not knowing her any more was a reality, as tangible and dizzying as that brat she'd given birth to, and she entertained the thought of responding with a few severed fingers sealed in an envelope – the Mudblood husband was likely to be sick, wretched thing that he was, and Meda – Healer Meda, with her ring and her offspring and her brand new life and her infuriating common sense – would know... know what? That the world was a cruel place, perhaps. That her sister had gone mad? What a perfect auntie for the sweetheart scum on the picture – Bella tore it, again and again, and savagely welcomed the return of the anger, searing hot in her chest, raving, flaming, _alive_. It anchored her to the earth, made her feel strong again, real again, instead of empty and numb and alone and cold – and made her want to break things. Break. Crack. _Snap_.

Bellatrix stomped on the letter, painting it brown and red, all crumpled and lovely with pieces of halfblood child floating from her fingers to join it with the mud on the floor where it belonged. Her laugh was all blade-sharp and billowing edges, shattered and ready to snap, biting. She laughed louder and harder, finding that she rather liked the sound. Fitting. Yes. She gasped, chest aching, lips twisting, fingers gripping the table for support.


End file.
